June 25, 2008
THE DELUSIONS OF A REALIST:
Taking ownership of Iraq? (Thomas L. Friedman, June 25, 2008, NY Times)
Having recently returned from Egypt, I have the Suez Canal on my mind. And looking at Iraq from Cairo, the thought occurred to me that maybe the Iraqis have just crossed the Suez Canal. If so, that's good news.What am I talking about? There is no way that Egypt's President Anwar Sadat could have ever made peace with Israel had he not first launched his lightning strike across the Suez Canal on Yom Kippur, 1973. "The crossing," as that surprise attack became known in Egyptian lore, was as psychologically important as it was militarily important. It wiped away Egypt's humiliating loss in the 1967 war and gave Egyptians the dignity and self-confidence to make peace with Israel as military equals.
The joint isn't exactly packed to the rafters with folks who take Tom Friedman seriously, but how does anyone keep reading after he suggests that there was an Egyptian consensus for peace with Israel? Iraq, on the other hand, has had consensual government since pretty near the end of the war that he later dismisses as fake. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 25, 2008 3:27 PM
Egyptians = Sadat
Posted by: Brandon at June 25, 2008 4:57 PMThis analogy is mind-blowingly idiotic. Egyptian forces were across the Suez for, what, a few days? So is Friedman saying that Iraq is about to get its butt kicked, and that this is only a temporary victory? It sure doesn't read like that, although I'm sure his dinner party pals think so. Friedman wrote one good column shortly after 9/11 trying to explain to the world why the US was a bit peeved and wasn't going to just "get over it" but his analysis is invariably sophomoric, to be charitable.
Posted by: b at June 25, 2008 5:18 PMI'm sorry, the Yom Kippur war made Egypt Israel's military equal? No wonder I haven't been able to follow the MSM's analysis of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted by: Ibid at June 25, 2008 5:27 PMTo be perfectly fair to Friedman, it isn't an indefensible thesis.
Yeah, the Egyptians got their butt kicked, but they did cross the canal under their own steam; you have no idea how rare that sort of thing is. It isn't that they lost, it's that they put up a credible fight -- and that attitude is reinforced by the fact they did get the Sinai back.
The attitude belongs to the same set of mind-games that lets them murder a raped daughter to "preserve their honor." From our POV it does no such thing -- in fact, the reverse -- but they accept it.
So Friedman isn't as off base as you might think. He's trying to work himself around to finding ways he can declare that the US has won in Iraq despite George W. Bush, and invocation of that kind of attitude will be endemic over the next two or three months.
Regards,
Ric
And he isn't the first to have offered this scenario Ric. When it becomes repeated often enough it may become history ... and that would be a shame.
Posted by: Genecis at June 26, 2008 3:58 PM
The important thing about that op-ed is that Friedman is a weathervane, and a much more sensitive one than the average Lefty.
Watch the talking points shift over the next little while. "We're winning in Iraq, and George Bush had nothing to do with it!"
Regards,
Posted by: Ric Locke at June 25, 2008 4:53 PMRic